Install MicroK8s on Windows

Tutorials
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Key Value
Summary Get a local Kubernetes on Windows with Microk8s and Multipass.
Categories containers
Difficulty 1
Author Ammar Naqvi ammar.naqvi@canonical.com, Konstantinos Tsakalozos kos.tsakalozos@canonical.com

Overview

What is Kubernetes

Kubernetes clusters host containerised applications in a reliable and scalable way. Having DevOps in mind, Kubernetes makes maintenance tasks such as upgrades dead simple.

What is MicroK8s

MicroK8s is a CNCF certified upstream Kubernetes deployment that runs entirely on your workstation or edge device. Being a snap it runs all Kubernetes services natively (i.e. no virtual machines) while packing the entire set of libraries and binaries needed. Installation is limited by how fast you can download a couple of hundred megabytes and the removal of MicroK8s leaves nothing behind.

In this tutorial youā€™ll learn how toā€¦

  • Install MicroK8s on Windows
  • Operate your Kubernetes cluster
  • Access the Kubernetes Dashboard

You will only need ā€¦

  • A Windows 10 machine with at least 8 GB of RAM and 40 GB storage
  • If you have Windows 10 Home edition, you will also need to install VirtualBox (Windows 10 Professional, Enterprise and Student editions include Hyper-v for virtualisation).

Installation

Duration: 5:00

MicroK8s has a Windows installer that will take care of setting up the software for you.
Download the latest installer here.

installer image

The installer checks if Hyper-V is available and switched on. If you donā€™t have Hyper-v (e.g. on Windows 10 Home edition) it is possible to use VirtualBox as an alternative.

Configuring MicroK8s

Duration: 2:00

You can now configure MicroK8s - the minimum recommendations are already filled in.

config

For information on changing the ā€˜Snap Trackā€™, see the MicroK8s docs.
You can change this configuration at a later date by re-running the installer. Note that the Memory and Disk limits are initially set at the minimum values. If you are planning on running large workloads (e.g. kubeflow will require around 12GB RAM) you will want to set these higher.

Wait for MicroK8s to start

Duration: 2:00

Run PowerShell or cmd to get a command line.

image

Now you can check to see when MicroK8s is up and running:

microk8s status --wait-ready

Access Kubernetes

Duration: 2:00

MicroK8s bundles its own version of kubectl for accessing Kubernetes. Use it
to run commands to monitor and control your Kubernetes. For example, to view your node:

microk8s kubectl get nodes

ā€¦or to see the running services:

microk8s kubectl get services

Deploy an app

Duration: 3:00

Of course, Kubernetes is meant for deploying apps and services. You can use
the kubectl command to do that as with any Kuberenetes. Try
installing a demo app:

microk8s kubectl create deployment kubernetes-bootcamp --image=gcr.io/google-samples/kubernetes-bootcamp:v1

It may take a minute or two to install, but you can check the status:

microk8s kubectl get pods

Use add-ons

Duration: 2:00

MicroK8s uses the minimum of components for a pure, lightweight Kubernetes.
However, plenty of extra features are available with a few keystrokes using
ā€œadd-onsā€ ā€“ pre-packaged components that will provide extra capabilities
for your Kubernetes, from simple DNS management to machine learning with
Kubeflow!

To start it is recommended to add DNS management to facilitate communication
between services. For applications which need storage, the ā€˜storageā€™ add-on
provides directory space on the host. These are easy to set up:

microk8s enable dns
microk8s enable storage

Starting and Stopping MicroK8s

Duration: 1:00

MicroK8s will continue running until you decide to stop it. You can stop and
start MicroK8s with these simple commands:

microk8s stop

ā€¦ will stop MicroK8s and its services. You can start again any time by running:

microk8s start

You can also just reinitialise your Kubernetes with microk8s reset.

Congratulations!

Duration: 1:00

You now have your own Kubernetes, ready to deploy apps or experiment with.

What next?

2

This needs a minor update as the recommended multipass instructions have changed

3

@evilnick I have upgraded your permissions to be able to edit now.

4

Unless Iā€™m missing something, the text says that the app will show up at http://localhost:32648 but the screenshot shows an xip.io address?

Great tutorial, btw, thanks

5

Am I correct in assuming these instructions will NOT work when using the vbox driver (e.g., when on Windows 10 Home)? If so, is there any chance to get the docs updated to warn about this, so people donā€™t end up wasting time on something that canā€™t work and getting frustrated and annoyed with the tools?

6

On my windows install I was only to get these instructions to work when running the /snap/bin/microk8s.kubectl as sudo. The IP addresses in the example after testing the add-ons also point back to localhost but should be the master IP obtained in the multipass list command.

7

The tutorial has now been updated to use the new installer, so things should be more straightforward now.

8

Hi there,

when installing MicroK8s on Windows, the process requires two extra steps (at least for me and other people that I have seen on the forums):

  1. After installing Multipass, you must download the snap for the current version:
    multipass exec microk8s-vm -- sudo snap install microk8s --classic
  2. I had to manually create the MicroK8s config folder and then dump the config file from command line:
    microk8s config > config

Otherwise the installation is not complete and operational.

I hope this helps.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Dani.

1 Like
9

I am using Windows 10 Pro ,HyperV,Microk8s 1.26v .How can i access a nginx pod to another host machine. I dont want to use port forwarding. Itried it but the connection break dur to heavy load in traffic when we did a test.Any other options kindly suggest its urgent.